Miata love

My long-neglected Miata is finally getting some attention. Last fall while parked on the street in front of the house, a neighbor kid backed into the fender. He came right up to the door and apologized, which took some guts. I tried for quite a while to find a used fender in the correct Crystal White, but no go. The Spec Piñata guys have made it really tough to find body panels.

Miata owie

The damage is not too bad, and looks to be limited to the fender only.

‘Tis just a scratch!

The bigger struggle was clearing out our carport to make some room to work. One of my long-term roadster projects had been sleeping in there, covered with boxes of spare parts and whatnot. Taking advantage of the fact that some high winds blew down our backyard fence and allowed access, the roadsters have been moved out back, wrapped in plastic.

Clearing all the clutter and adding five new worklights has really upgraded the carport. No more lying on the wet driveway in the rain to get some work done!

The Miata was filthy, covered in green growing goo that filled every crevice. I gave her a quick scrub and got her up in the air to get busy on the fender. I’m going to take the long road and remove the front bumper for access. There are “quicky” methods for replacing the fender with the nose in place, but I’d much rather do it right. Plus, I can inspect everything and obsessively clean. The Miata has gone from almost new to vintage in the 17 years and 100,000+ miles since we first met.